I had known Richard since 1971, the year before the Great Flood. I am not sure how but I suspect our acquaintance arose from our wives meeting over the okra at Weis Market. So far as I know in those days our families were the only two who consumed this delicacy.

However we met, we spent our first evening together chatting and dancing gently on his front porch to an exotic music, new to my ears, called reggae. We spent many, many more such evenings eating exotic foods from around the world, chatting and dancing that gently and gracefully. We celebrated his birthday at his home on Old Year's Day night for almost two decades.

The next year. 1972, I returned to his porch to begin on the cleanup and restoration of his house after the Great Lewisburg Flood. So, our friendship immediately set out on adventures.

A more pleasant adventure I remember occurred when our families spent two splendid weeks in Thailand several years ago, visiting Chang Mai, Bangkok, Phuket, and the bay of Phang Nga.

Phang Nga is a beautiful bay studded with small, overgrown islands where the James Bond movie, "The Man with the Golden Gun" was filmed. As we were sailing around the islands and through the grottos, a stick appeared in front of our boat, slid under the bow and became entangled in the propeller, which forced it through the hull. The boat was sinking.

Our captain, the harbor master at Phang Nga, began to wave his life jacket at the back of the boat at passing fishermen. (I still wonder why fishermen in that area recognize a waving life jacked as a distress signal.) A fisherman in a long, slender canoe with a long motor turned around and, with a smile on his face, loaded us into his vessel and delivered us to our floating restaurant. Most of us were more than a little concerned over the incident but Richard passed through the ordeal calm and circumspect.

When we retired, Richard helped me compile a dictionary of all the words in the Bible for Tyndale House Publishers when I was desperate for editors. He then continued to work on a dictionary for all the science and social science high school texts for Holt Rinehart Publishing Company. He was a true friend, an excellent scholar, and a man, like me, who loved words.

We had adventures together but I miss most the quiet chats, the music he brought to my life, and his presence. I am a much better person for having known Richard Smith and will miss him and his company the rest of my life.

-- Robert Beard, November 18, 2007